


It's Late

by ImpishTubist



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Getting Together, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 16:10:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: The bus ride to London is distressingly quiet.





	It's Late

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Queen's "It's Late."

The bus ride to London is distressingly quiet.

They sit side-by-side, shoulders brushing, and Crowley stares resolutely ahead. He’s got one hand resting on his knee, fingers tapping out a senseless rhythm on his leg, but otherwise he’s completely immobile.

Aziraphale feels at once too large and far, far too small. This corporation looks exactly like the one he had before, but somehow he feels as though it can’t contain him, that it can’t hold six millennia within its confines. And yet, it is also too large, and there is far too much of it to fill. He misses his former body, even though this one is indistinguishable from it. His former corporation was comfortable, worn, a known entity. Something that had seen him through the entirety of this planet’s six-thousand-year existence. 

Something that had touched Crowley, a thousand times before. Brief fingertips at his shoulder, his wrist, the one terrible night in the sixteenth century when Aziraphale had to bandage his mangled wings while Crowley drank himself into oblivion. The brief brush of fingers in 1941 when Crowley handed the books to him. This new corporation has experienced none of that.

Aziraphale reaches out, and lays a hand carefully on top of Crowley’s fidgety one.

Crowley goes still, rigid as a statue. Aziraphale leaves his hand there for a second, then two, and when Crowley continues to not react, he begins to pull away.

Fingers close around his, grabbing onto his hand. 

“Angel,” Crowley says in a low voice. The word is heavy with all they cannot say, with what they have spent six millennia denying, and it presses Aziraphale into his seat, holding him there, unable to do anything but clutch Crowley’s hand like a lifeline. 

The bus drops them right outside Crowley’s Mayfair flat. With a flick of his hand, Crowley vanishes it to Oxford. Aziraphale follows him up to the flat and inside, and almost crashes into Crowley when he stops dead in the hallway.

“Fuck,” Crowley says in a low voice. “Forgot about that.”

“Forgot about what--oh, dear.” Holy water might not have an effect on Aziraphale, but he can sense it, even from several feet away. And it’s pooled around a dark mass on the floor, which Aziraphale can only assume was once a demon. 

And then it becomes crystal-clear exactly what happened, and a wave of shame washes over him. Crowley had asked for his help over a century ago, had been willing to risk his life by stepping foot in a church when Aziraphale denied him, and all this time, Aziraphale had it _ wrong _. 

_ Insurance_, Crowley had said, and Aziraphale hadn’t bothered to ask him precisely what that meant. He’d drawn his own erroneous conclusions, had balled up the note and tossed it in the water, and never once did he suspect that what Crowley was talking about was _ protection _. A last resort, if it came to that. If Aziraphale hadn’t broken down in 1967 and given Crowley what he’d asked for…

Cold sweeps through him. If he’d been fully human, he might have thrown up on the still-steaming remains of the demon. He’s been so incredibly _ stupid _, and it nearly cost him Crowley’s life.

“Oh, Crowley,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry, I never knew--” 

“It’s fine,” Crowley says shortly. “Could you--”

He gestures at the mess, and comprehension dawns. _ Of course_. Crowley’s not able to clean it up on his own, not even with a demonic miracle. Aziraphale snaps his fingers, vanishing the former demon and the holy water, and Crowley’s shoulders slump a fraction as some of the tension bleeds out of him.

“Thanks,” he says wearily. “Make yourself comfortable, I’m going to go take a shower.” 

"A shower? Why don't you just..." Aziraphale waves a hand vaguely through the air. Crowley lifts an eyebrow at him. He's got the sunglasses back on, which irks Aziraphale. He's been going without the sunglasses more and more nowadays, when it's just the two of them. To see him wear them now is disconcerting, and also irritating. Crowley _ knows _that Aziraphale doesn't care about his eyes.

"Yes, a _ shower_," he bites out. Apparently near-Apocalypses make certain demons tetchy. "Showers are _ warm, _ and _ relaxing, _and if it's my last night in existence then I'm bloody well having a shower. There's wine in the kitchen, help yourself." 

He turns on his heel and disappears down the hall, leaving Aziraphale to fend for himself in the unfamiliar flat.

Aziraphale doesn't know what he'd been expecting Crowley's flat to look like, but it isn't _ this _. This flat is cold, and lifeless, all sharp angles and smooth tile and expensive marble. The rooms are high-ceilinged, cavernous, and empty. This isn’t at all what Aziraphale thought about when he thought of Crowley--which is distressingly often, these days. 

Drinking alone is unappealing, so he wanders from room to room, brushing his fingers over furniture that looks like it's never been touched. There's not even a speck of dust in the flat, no evidence that anyone even lives here. He finds it all supremely depressing.

And _ then _he finds the plants. 

"Oh, Crowley," he whispers, gazing at them in awe. He had _ no idea _. 

The room is filled, from floor to ceiling, with lush, verdant plants. For a moment, all Aziraphale can do is stare. And then he compels himself to move, strolling among the rows of plants, brushing light fingertips over their perfect leaves and thick, sturdy stems. Here is a room in Crowley’s flat that is entirely filled with _ life _ , vibrant and brimming, bursting at the seams. Here, finally, is a room in the flat that actually _ reminds _Aziraphale of Crowley. Of Eden.

“Aren’t you a beautiful thing?” he murmurs, stroking a nearby leaf with his thumb. The plant shudders, he hopes in happiness. “He’s taken remarkable care of you.” 

“Oh, don’t start.” Crowley appears in the doorway. He crosses his arms and leans one shoulder into the frame, and for a moment all Aziraphale can do is stare. He’s dressed in a black tee and black cotton shorts, his arms and scaled feet bare for the first time since...Aziraphale can’t remember the last time he saw this much of Crowley’s skin. Not since the fourteenth century, at least. “It took me _ years _to get them to look like that, angel. You’re going to undo all my hard work.” 

“I only said that it was--”

“Yes, yes, I heard what you said,” Crowley says quickly. He pushes himself off the doorway and comes closer. Aziraphale fights the urge to take a step back. When did the room get so _ warm _ ? “Don’t say it again, or they’ll think I’m going to start going _ easy _ on them, which I assure you I am _ not _.”

He directs this last vicious word at the plant, which starts to quiver. 

“My dear, are you _ threatening _your plants?”

Crowley looks at him. “Well, how else do you think I got them to look like this?” 

“The poor dears,” Aziraphale says. Crowley comes too close to one of the plants, and it starts to shake. “Crowley, you can’t terrorize your plants. You need to give them love, and attention, and--” 

“And how well did that work out for yours?” Crowley asks, eyebrow raised over his sunglasses.

“Ah--well…” Aziraphale rubs the back of his neck. “But, my dear, that wasn’t because I wasn’t _ threatening _them, it was only--”

“It was only that you forgot to water them. And that they needed direct sunlight.” There’s a slight smile in Crowley’s voice. Aziraphale wishes he could see it in his eyes, too, wishes he could pluck those sunglasses off his face and toss them away. “_And _because you didn’t remind them that if they put even one leaf out of line, it was over for them.” 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale scolds, “you can’t--”

“Shut up, angel,” Crowley says, and kisses him. 

It’s not that Aziraphale has never done this before. He’s an _ angel_, after all. Love is part of the job description, and Aziraphale has been spreading it and reveling in it for millennia. But he’s never had a kiss quite like this one, in all his time on this planet, and for a moment all thought is wiped from his mind. 

“We can’t…” He breaks the kiss, but doesn’t pull away. Crowley’s hands are tight and hot on his hips, and he has a hand on the side of Crowley’s neck. He can't say that this is a surprise--he's always been a terrible liar, even to himself. Crowley's interest has been evident for millennia, about as long as Aziraphale has been fighting those same desires.

“We don’t have a side anymore.” Crowley brushes his lips against the side of Aziraphale’s throat, and Aziraphale swallows a whimper. “We’re on our own side.”

“So you keep saying,” Aziraphale murmurs. His eyes flutter closed as Crowley works his way down his neck. He presses a kiss to the hollow of Aziraphale’s throat as deft fingers start to undo the buttons of his shirt. “Crowley…” 

Crowley stops and lifts his head. He searches Aziraphale’s face for a moment. Whatever he finds there makes him drop his hands and take a step back. Aziraphale reaches for him, fingers closing around Crowley’s wrist before he can move too far away.

“I didn’t say to stop, my dear,” he murmurs.

Crowley’s forked snake-tongue darts out and wets his lips.

“Do you want this, angel?” he asks. 

Aziraphale has spent more than four thousand years saying _ no _ to Crowley; to this. He pulls Crowley closer, so he can reach up and take the sunglasses off his face. He folds them carefully and sets them next to a plant on a nearby table. He _ wants _Crowley, all of Crowley, and won’t let any piece of him remain hidden.

“Yes,” he says, and Crowley’s yellow serpent eyes darken. “Yes, my dear, _ yes_.”

***

Aziraphale lets Crowley believe that he fell in love with him in 1941, after the church and the bombs and the books. It’s easier than the truth, which is that Aziraphale has loved him--and buried it--since the Ark. He’d found a room on the ship that shouldn’t have been there, that hadn’t existed until the day the rains came, and a demon watching over a dozen sleeping Mesopotamian children. Crowley had cared for them for forty days and nights, sneaking them food and fresh water, comforting them as deafening waves broke against the hull. And still he had grieved--Aziraphale felt the sorrow roll off him in waves--because he hadn’t been able to save them all. 

He’s loved Crowley and denied it for thousands of years. But things are different, now. He’s lost Heaven, though part of him wonders if he ever had it in the first place. All he has left is Crowley, not that he’d have it any other way. He’d walk through Hell itself for Crowley--

He sits up abruptly, dislodging Crowley from where his head had been resting on Aziraphale’s chest and smacking him with a wing. 

“For _ Someone’s _sake, angel, what are you--”

“I know what it means,” Aziraphale says. “Agnes’s last prophecy. I know what it means. Crowley...we have to swap bodies.” 

“Come again?” Crowley sits up now, too, and shakes out his wings. 

“We’re going to be hearing from our respective offices. Sooner rather than later, I expect,” Aziraphale says. “Crowley, you can’t go back to Hell. They’ll _ destroy _you.” 

“It’ll be death by holy water, I expect,” Crowley says, much too calmly, and like he’s thought about it before. Aziraphale wonders how many times over the years he was recalled to Hell and expected it to be a death sentence. 

“Holy water won’t affect me. I need to go in your place,” Aziraphale says, but Crowley is already shaking his head.

“Swap bodies? No way, angel, it’s too dangerous. What if they have something else in mind for us?”

“You forget, my dear, that I was a soldier once.” Aziraphale brushes the tip of his wing across Crowley’s cheek. Crowley shudders at the touch. “I can take care of myself. I can handle anything Hell tries to throw at me, I promise. And if...things go badly for me in Heaven, you at least are immune to Hellfire.” 

Crowley’s quiet for a moment, absorbing this. 

“Alright,” he says finally. “Choose our faces wisely, right? Hope the ol’ girl knew what she was talking about.”

“Agnes hasn’t steered any of us wrong yet,” Aziraphale says. 

It’s an easy matter, it turns out, to swap bodies. They have to touch to do so, and initially the swap feels like a slightly-unpleasant wave of heat that spreads through his body, but then it’s over. Crowley’s limbs are long, gangly, and--until Aziraphale can get a handle on them--uncoordinated. He’s spent six thousand years studying Crowley--his expressions, his mannerisms, his little figures of speech, the fluid movement of his hips and knees as he walks. It isn’t difficult to slip him on like a glove, and a thrill goes down Aziraphale’s spine at the thought of that. But he pushes it away, because this is quite literally a matter of life and death, and he needs his wits about him. Crowley’s depending on it.

They practice the swap a few more times, and it’s decided that Crowley will leave before dawn wearing Aziraphale’s skin, and go to the bookshop. But dawn is still a blessed four hours away, and they return to their own bodies for what Aziraphale hopes isn’t the final time.

“Come here, my dear,” he says, and Crowley melts against him. 

Aziraphale can make an effort if he wants to, can manifest the parts necessary for sex the way the humans have it. He’s indulged here and there throughout the millennia, partly because it was a curiosity and mostly because it’s an angel’s job to sow love and happiness throughout the world. With Crowley, though, he doesn’t have to. They can quite literally inhabit each other’s bodies, and can find their pleasure in ways that have nothing to do with the organs their human corporations possess. 

It lasts for hours, and is over far too soon. The first light of dawn will pink the horizon in half an hour. Crowley’s splayed out on the bed, naked, his corporation covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He’s tucked the wings out of sight, and Aziraphale reluctantly retracts his own before stretching out next to Crowley. Their slick skin sticks together, and he throws a leg over both of Crowley’s own. Crowley threads his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair, tangling in the curls. 

“Would you truly have gone to Alpha Centauri, if...”

He trails off, feeling callous for even bringing up the subject. _ If you hadn’t thought I’d died_, is what he manages not to say. Crowley’s fingers still in his hair. 

“I didn’t much see the point in Alpha Centauri if you weren’t going to be there with me,” he says quietly, the words rumbling through his chest. "Or anywhere else, for that matter." 

Aziraphale lifts his head to look at him. Crowley’s corporation is used to sleep, and he hasn’t had any in more than a day. Exhaustion is written into the lines at his eyes and around his mouth, his hollow cheeks, his eyes that keep threatening to close and stay that way. Aziraphale touches the corner of Crowley’s mouth, traces his fingers over the red lips and murmurs, “And I don’t much see the point in Earth without you here to enjoy it with me.” 

He lays his head on Crowley’s chest again, and Crowley resumes stroking his hair.

“When this is all over,” Aziraphale says after a moment, “you should ask me again.” 

Crowley grows very still. He stops breathing, not that he needs to in the first place. Under Aziraphale’s ear, his heart pounds away irregularly in his chest. A beat passes, and then two. Eventually, Crowley rests his hand on the back of Aziraphale’s head, holding him there, and there’s nowhere else on Earth Aziraphale wants to be right now.

“Alright, angel,” he says finally. “I think I’ll do that.”


End file.
